Cedric Alexander: I was more of a Paul Heyman guy than Triple H guy

In WWE, Cedric Alexander felt more like a Paul Heyman guy than a Triple H guy.

Alexander and Paul “Triple H” Levesque shared a special moment in 2016 when Alexander was signed to a WWE contract after his stellar match against Kota Ibushi in the Cruiserweight Classic. On a new episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Alexander revealed that he actually was technically signed a week before that match — but the moment he shared with the fans and Levesque will always be one of the highlights of his life.

“I don’t think I ever could have picked anything better, unless you made me WWE Champion on the spot [laughs],” Alexander said. “I will cherish that moment forever. That’s a career, life-defining moment.”

Alexander spent almost nine years with WWE before being released from his contract last month. When asked about his relationship with Levesque, Alexander said things never really developed past the endorsement he got from Levesque at the Cruiserweight Classic.

“Honestly, it didn’t go past that, funny enough,” Alexander said. “Like, you would think from that moment I’d be a Triple H guy, right? No, I mean — so there was a point where we were in 205 Live that he kind of had some say in there a little bit, and kind of took care of me. But, like, I was never really a fully Triple H guy. I was more of a Paul Heyman guy when he was writing Raw and they drafted me out of 205 Live into Raw. I was more of a Heyman guy than anything else. Heyman gave me a bunch of little sidebar conversations and this, that, and the other way more than Triple H ever did.”

Van Vliet asked Alexander what the biggest lesson he learned from Heyman was.

“Patience, for better or worse, patience,” Alexander responded. “I remember there was one point I went to Heyman and I was just like, I was probably on Raw for like a year, but they haven’t really done anything with me. And I was like, ‘Hey, Paul, what do I have to do? Like, what do you need from me in order to get to that next level?’ I think this was maybe right after we did the whole thing with AJ [Styles] and the squash match we did on [Clash] of Champions in Charlotte. He was just telling me, ‘No, just wait. We’ll take care of you. If you gotta wait six months, wait six months. If you gotta wait a year, wait a year.’ And I just remember going, ‘I will be the best soldier I can be and just wait it out.’ And every time they called me for something, whether it was the Gary Garbutt thing or any other random thing they asked for, I was, hey, I’m here. What do you want me to do?”

Alexander was released from his WWE contract on February 7 and will officially be a free agent this May. He told Van Vliet that he’s hoping to end up in AEW for a reunion with his former Hurt Business stablemates Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin, and MVP.